Thanks to the wonderful FAQ by karajorma, I have figured out a fair bit of modding my own ship. Im now aiming to work with textureing my new craft.

The thing is, i designed my ship in 3d studio max and used the pof exporter to create a pof. I then tried to use Lithunwrap to create a uvmap texture that i could edit in photoshop. But altho lithunwrap can import a pof, it doesnt seem to export a pof. Any of the other export options just loose all my helpers and points.

I then tried a method of using uvunrwap within 3dstudio max. This can give me a map, but i can seem to export it for use in photoshop. The only way i can get it to work is to take a screenshot of the map and then paste it into photoshop and work with it from there. Altho this does seem to work, its not terribly acurate and im sure there must be an easier way?

I was curious as to whether anyone had tried tackling Battle Fleet Gothic of Warhammer 40K Fame. Granted some of the ships are kind of homely and ostentatious though Sathanas sized(check out the -10X http://www.merzo.net/ ). But if 40K Space battles are like Dawn of War it could be pretty interesting in FS2 Open. Just a question not a request;)

My thinking is that this will enable the mechs to appear to track targets and torso twist to have the front part face targets on it's own plane of orientation (within reason).. That's teh basics of it. Later on table editing for diff weapon and fire rates will control firing so not every attck is an alpha strike (in the case of like the War Hammer witch has clusters of armaments left and right slaser/machine gun/PPC)

I am awaiting final confirmation from Mulder, but that is how I advised him to proceed for a mech model test.

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"Don\'t think of it as being out-numbered, think of it as having a WIDE target selection!"

Anyway I wasted the whole day trying to figure out what I was doing wrong with turrets (going by Karajorma's tutorial) I found the axis button and thought I did them right. Anyway what is wrong with this turret?

I would appreciate if anyone could give me the answer (especially if you can fix it so I can copy it)

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"Don\'t think of it as being out-numbered, think of it as having a WIDE target selection!"

The problem there is your heirarchy:The first problem was that you had each separate barrel as a separate geometries with individual lights glued to them. This makes FS see each barrel as a separate subobject.

Then the base geometry is glued to another light, making the base geometry appear as a subobject of the base group - thus the game could easily mistake it for another barrel, because it's set up exactly like one.

Here's how it should look:The way to get this is to go pretty much from the bottom up. You do this by starting with the barrels - they should consist of a single chunk of geometry glued as a sibling to a light.You then glue this whole newly created group to the base geometry as a child. The easiest way to accomplish this is to simply drag the "turret02-arm" group on top of the "base02" geometry in the heirarchy window.

Once that's done, you'll have what you see in the above pic, except the turret02-FP01 & 2 lights will still be separate. Drag them individually over the "turret02-base" group, and it should put them in the same heirarchy level as the base geometry (ie gluing them as a sibling to the base).

It does.. I got confused in the tut and opened a FS model to see the how the submodels looked, rotated ect..

I realised after a while I had to make a turret arm so I mistakenly glued a light at the end of each barrel (the firingpoints)...

I don't know what unioned means, I was hoping to make a turret arm by simple dragging as I thought the tut implied. Crap... I thoguht dragging them togeher made them a group, it makes them a diff kind of group. My apologies this is new to me. Never heard anyone say the word union in 3 years

So if I can get the above to work the final step is to glue it to the model right? DO I still need a base light on the model hull itself? or will ligts on turrets take care of that? (will the hirearchy get messed?)

« Last Edit: April 04, 2006, 01:39:18 PM by Star Dragon »

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"Don\'t think of it as being out-numbered, think of it as having a WIDE target selection!"

A light glued to the hull isn't nessecary if the hull already has any sort of child subobject (turrets, radar, debris, lods etc). PCS works that bit out on it's own.

The boolean union is the Object Union tool - usually I would avoid it, but it's really the only thing you can use in truespace to accomplish this particular task.Not sure which version of TS you use, but in mine the Boolean tools are in the middle left of the bottom main control pannel - their icons involve green and red spheres. To use, simply select the first barrel's geometry, click the 'Object Union' button, and then click the second barrel's geometry.

There are two types of actions that can occur with a drag and drop operation in the heirarchy window:1) Dragging and dropping an existing object group onto another object or object group will make the first group a child of the second one, meaning it is on the heirarchy level below it's parent.

2) Dragging and droping a single object (ie, a single light or geometry) onto another object or object group will make the first object a sibling of the second, meaning it is on the same heirarchy level as the first.

To glue turrets to the model, you will be performing type 1 - since the turrets must be children of the main hull. In this case you'd drag the whole turret object (ie, the highest level of the turrets heirarchy) over the main hull geometry/object group.

Another handy thing I've learned is that when you've finished with your heirarchy and are ready to convert, select something other than your ship and then re-select your ship on it's highest heirarchy level. I don't have a clue what this does, but I recall it being the difference between a PCS crash and successful conversion with a really old model, so I've done it ever since, just in case.

Got anotehr quick turret question. I got a ball turret type that is a small hemisphere that has texture based firing points Can you make the base alone rotate as the firing point will have a restrictive arc that simulates elevation but really doesn't need any movement on the X axis.. Or do I still need to make a invisible arm? basicly this is a single part turret that merely rotates on the Z axis... Doable?

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"Don\'t think of it as being out-numbered, think of it as having a WIDE target selection!"